Just been enjoying a brief exchange on twitter with Jan Webb and Paul Benson about the subject of our Masters assignment/dissertations.
http://twitter.com/#!/psbenson/status/20559268663009281
I’ve noticed a number of folks out there who are undertaking studies at M Level and beyond and that set me thinking. On the course I’m undertaking, sharing progress and interacting and supporting each other is part of the expectation (community of practice principles I guess). We post most of what we do online, inviting comments and suggestions from each other. Other folks seem to do that too; perhaps amongst a wider audience, sometimes blogging about it or using a wiki for example. So I was wondering if there’s any mileage in having a central ‘repository,’ for want of a better word, where folks from Twitter and other forums can post a brief introduction to their field of study, links to any material they’re posting on the web and contact details (if wanted). Maybe a Google doc, maybe a wiki?
I see potential benefits from both sides. People browsing such a resource might be after inspiration or information on an area they’re engaged with. Those posting to the ‘site’ might benefit from feedback or insights.
Just an idea, but what do you think? By all means add a comment.
Image bo j.o.h.n walker on Flickr
A while ago a couple of our Y13s came to see me having just returned from a conference where they’d seen a student using Prezi – they loved it and wanted to know more. I did no more than providing them with a link to the site and suggested they would find the ‘Learn Prezi‘ tutorial section useful. As part of their EPQ studies, they were required to present their findings and wanted to use Prezi for that. Here’s one of the results from Katie:
Alzheimer’s and the NHS on Prezi
I only wish I’d been around to see and hear the presentation this accompanied as it’s clearly intended to reinforce points which were being made ‘live.’ However apart from the role for which it was intended, I was so impressed with the degree of proficiency Katie had achieved, largely under her own steam. We seem to invest substantial amounts of time ‘teaching’ students how to use Word, Excel, Access etc and I find myself asking … why? Is it really necessary? OK I accept that some will need a little more guidance than others, but how much time could we recapture by allowing those who can cope independently to do so and targeting our support more effectively? One other thought springs to mind – why is it that these students were simply able to go away and find out how to do something themselves, yet many colleagues wouldn’t touch a new application like this without first being ‘trained?’ Given my more … ahem … advanced years, I don’t think it’s an age thing. Is it about ‘time’ then? For the majority of teachers, there’s no imperative to make learning different/new presentation tools a priority … but why would an A Level student with a full life in an out of school be any different? Perhaps it’s just the way certain people are wired. At the risk of sounding rather Prenskyesque, maybe there are those people, young and old, who are digital explorers? Who want to know what happens if you press this button. Who want to take a peek over the next horizon. Who want to explore the way less trod. So dare we just … hand over the reins?
In a post elsewhere, I described working with colleagues in English who were preparing Y12/13 students for a forthcoming exam. They wanted to deliver a sequence of activities through our learning platform which is a SharePoint implementation. These are the five tasks which they wanted to deliver and my suggestions for possible ways in which this could be achieved:
- An introduction in which Q1 is stated with key phrases highlighted and explained in more detail using ‘balloons’ which pop out when hovering over the phrases.
Here we used a simple html page (Content Editor web part in SharePoint) to contain the introductory text with Q1. Each key phrase had a hyperlink attached to it which simply led back to the same page, but the ‘alt text’ provided the explanations of each of the phrases. An alternative way to do this might be to turn the text into an image, then create an image map with hotspots which pop-out the explanations of the text when hovering over.
- The texts to be provided online so they could be read in turn and also to be ready to hand, whatever task the students were engaged in.
Here the texts were simply scanned (it was important to capture the original look and feel, rather than use an OCR tool to convert them to text), then uploaded to a Picture Library. This can be viewed as image thumbnails which can be clicked to open the texts full size. Importantly, this picture library can be surfaced on any of the other pages for the other tasks to allow provide the students with ready access to the texts.
- Provide a means for students to choose a term by which the texts could be grouped (e.g. phonology, passive voice etc). To encourage a range of choices across the class, when a student chose a particular term, this was then to be disallowed to the rest of the class.
This was tricky and I settled for a second best by using the survey tool with a single multiple choice question. The allowed responses included approx. 15 suggestions for themes around which the texts could be grouped, but in addition, a free-response option was provided in case students wanted to provide their own theme. The results were visible at all times, so students could see which themes had already been chosen – in the instructions they were advised not to choose a theme which someone had already selected.
- Provide a way in which each of the texts could be classified as either a good, less good or poor fit with their chosen term. This should be an interactive, graphical tool, similar to an interactive whiteboard.
A diagram had been provided by my colleagues of how they wanted this activity to work. I chose DabbleBoard as that seemed to provide the required functionality and provides an embed code which meant I could integrate it back into a SharePoint page in our platform (again using a Content Editor web part). It also allowed students to download a copy of their finished diagram as an image in case they needed to refer back to it. Despite instructions to the contrary, one student chose to ‘Save’ the DabbleBoard, which then meant their amendments became visible to all. Having a spare, fresh copy of the DabbleBoard prepared meant I could quickly swap a URL and the new one was immediately available.
- Allow the students to write a paragraph each, justifying and discussing the grouping they chose. At this point they should also be able to refer to the mark scheme for clarification of the points they needed to home in on. In addition, students should also be able to comment on the choices and justifications of their peers.
A Discussion Board seemed to satisfy the needs here, allowing the students to create a post for their submission, then comment on each other’s posts using the Reply feature. Importantly, the visibility settings meant that initially it could be arranged so that they could only see (and edit) their own post, thereby not being able to crib from what others had written. When satisfied that responses were complete, the teacher could allow all posts to become visible with no more than a couple of clicks.
Given that you’re reading this edtech related blog, I guess you could have undertaken a similar process as I did, perhaps using different tools, perhaps arriving at more elegant solutions. But here’s the thing; what about the average teacher? Could they do that? Perhaps more importantly, do they need to?
An adjunct to "In the pICTure," these posts have a more practical flavour
Practically In the pICTure 